Nathanielâ€™s question about small places is our proof text. You can find out what answer to the question was by looking it up in The Bible, if you donâ€™t already know.

A lot of folks in our country only know Chicago when Illinois is mentioned. I know some people from Chicago who have said that the only good things in Illinois are from Chicago. They hint at how little the rest of us know or have produced. There are

lots of small places in Illinois that have produced good people and things. As a matter of fact, I am sure that without the presence of people who contribute to what goes on in small places there would not be a Chicago.

Lets start small. In recent weeks a series of columns on small things in Stark County is strong evidence. The main thrust of those columns was about precision production in Stark County. An example is the 60 acre plot at Scholl Farms that helps with increased corn and soybean production and improved land management. I wonder why Syngenta, a company that develops crop protection and seed development (from a small town in Iowa) and Garst. a seed company (from a small town in Iowa) put the effort and money into that learning center into a small county in Illinois? That couldnâ€™t have been done in Chicago.

It is true that the other five precision productions in Stark County could have been built and work in Chicago. However, the persons who brought them into being, Lloyd Aldrich, The Harms family, Andrew and Marsha Dwyer, Jim Bryner and Cindy Britt ingham live in small towns and knew the space they needed and the people they could hire was in small towns. The companies they sell their products to know a good deal when they see it.

I can think of several persons who have grown up in Stark County who were educated in our schools, got some higher education and are making contributions in the larger places like Chicago. Some how I do believe that people who come from small places relate better to the needs of the world than the people who live in the more distant and big places.

Maybe the big cities attract more attention, but they could not exist if people did not grow up where the individual matters. Stark county is a community of importance and necessity. In that same manner each citizen in Stark County is of importance and of essential nature whether they have stayed in the county or gone elsewhere.

Perhaps we ought to tell the people who either have not heard of Stark County or know of its value what they have missed and suggest that they pay more attention to the larger picture. An afterthought: We, the residents of Stark County, need to take pride in the works of The Community of Stark County.